


On the Internet

by Lipstickcat



Category: Psych
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-28
Updated: 2013-03-28
Packaged: 2017-12-06 18:46:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/738923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lipstickcat/pseuds/Lipstickcat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog.</i> --Peter Steiner</p>
            </blockquote>





	On the Internet

**Author's Note:**

> Old fic I wrote about 4 years ago. Set in a verse where Lassiter owns a corgi named Firefox.

It felt like the faint _pnk-pnk-pnk_ sound had always been in his head, in the way that a sound reaches your brain before the rest of you has fully woken up. For a few moments, Carlton considered ignoring it and going back to sleep, but slowly the realization filtered through that it wasn’t a sound that his house made, not even at- he glanced over at his alarm clock and groaned- 2:45 a.m.

Reaching for his gun in his bedside table drawer, he half climbed, half rolled out of bed and padded carefully through his bedroom door. The sound had stopped, and he was beginning to think that he’d imagined it, when a high pitched bubbling sound came from the living room. It was eerie in the darkness, yet vaguely familiar. 

The door opened silently when he pushed it. He kept his hinges oiled; it made for a tactical advantage in situations like this not to announce your presence to an intruder. O’Hara had laughed at him when he’d advised her to do the same. Now he’d see who was laughing. Gun first, he swung into the room and quickly swept the space. No one. Just Firefox asleep on the couch- a fine guard dog he turned out to be- and the gentle whir of his laptop on the coffee table where he’d left it downloading and updating his antivirus software.

He was just about to check behind the couch when the bubbling sound filled the air again and movement on the screen caught his eye; notification that an instant message contact had just signed on popped up in the corner of the display. Now that he had turned his attention to the computer, he realized there was a steady flash of orange along the bottom of a very full toolbar. 

With a groan of sudden comprehension, he put his gun down on the coffee table and dropped heavily onto the couch alongside Firefox. The puppy made a soft grumbling sound and shifted enough to lay his head in Carlton’s lap, looking every inch of innocence and not at all like he’d spent the last few hours hyperactively mashing his owner’s keyboard with his paws. 

Setting about to see what damage had been caused, Carlton flicked through the succession of opened internet pages, shutting them down again as he went: 

• A YouTube video of some kind of rodent looking very surprised about something. Possibly having its temperature taken. 

• An Amazon.com page that seemed to think he’d ordered- and paid for- a bread maker, with nut/raisin dispenser, and a yellow submarine bath toy. He could cancel that in the morning. 

• Several of the pages were his homepage at the Santa Barbara PD website. On one such page, Firefox had kindly started filling in a Citizen Traffic Collision Report. Thankfully, he hadn’t managed to send it, so there was no risk of the gibberish email getting traced back to Carlton’s computer. 

Dogs were supposed to relieve stress, not cause it. He dropped his hand down to the puppy in his lap and gave him a scratch behind the ear. Firefox pushed his head into the touch, his fur soft and warm. So okay, Carlton could forgive him and learn a lesson about leaving equipment running around unattended animals. No real harm had been done. 

… He soon changed his mind when he finally got to look at the open IM window:

[02:08] det lassiter: >>>>>>……..>  
[02:08] shawnpsychic007: Lassieface!!!  
[02:09] shawnpsychic007: :3  
[02:09] shawnpsychic007: the spirits told me you were having trouble sleeping  
[02:09] shawnpsychic007: so here I am! Just for you  
[02:11] shawnpsychic007: So spill  
[02:11] shawnpsychic007: What’s troubling you? Is it the Hobson case? I sense you just can’t see where the maid and the scuba gear fits into it all, can you?  
[02:15] shawnpsychic007: Quit hogging all the bones Lassittus Rattus, throw one my way!  
[02:16] det lassiter: dygsbUJYGFwuigfwe  
[02:16] shawnpsychic007: There’s no need for that kind of language, is there? I’m only trying to help  
[02:17] shawnpsychic007: Ok. If you don’t wanna talk shop.   
[02:17] shawnpsychic007: looking for a distraction?  
[02:18] [shawnpsychic007 has sent you an invitation to use the tic-tac-toe application. Accept?]  
[02:20] [Invitation rejected]  
[02:21] shawnpsychic007: You’re the one who pinged me, you know  
[02:22] shawnpsychic007: I could just go to bed. I don’t need to sit here talking to myself  
[02:25] shawnpsychic007: Lassy?  
[02:25] shawnpsychic007: Carly?  
[02:26] shawnpsychic007: Lassiter?  
[02:26] det lassiter: dgsm.,n,zx\n,mxz,zx\\.,m.nzx\,mnz  
[02:27] shawnpsychic007: ……….   
[02:27] shawnpsychic007: Are you drunk?  
[02:27] det lassiter: m\zmn.;.l \zlkm \/.,|Z?m|Z.,,m|ZM,m|ZMNz\\.,m|   
[02:28] shawnpsychic007: LASSY!! YOU’RE AS DRUNK AS A SKUNK IN A BREWERY WITH ITS OWN PERSONAL INSCRIBED TANKARD  
[02:28] det lassiter: \zxn   
[02:28] shawnpsychic007: How about we try something easy to begin with, like “cat”?  
[02:31] shawnpsychic007: No?  
[02:32] shawnpsychic007: you could spill your heart out to me and tell me how great I am instead, if that’s what rocks your drunken boat.  
[02:33] det lassiter: mm,ksjudwalednmewq mmn   
[02:33] det lassiter: bhbj  
[02:34] det lassiter: kxbs;lzx\/.,m/  
[02:34] shawnpsychic007: Could you repeat that last bit? My high school “drunk detective” language classes are a bit rusty and I can’t quite figure out if the translation should be-  
[02:35] shawnpsychic007: “Spencer, I don’t know what the department would do without you. Well, I do, it would solve far less cases.”  
[02:35] shawnpsychic007: or  
[02:36] shawnpsychic007: “Oh, Shawn, get here right now. I’ve drunk and horny and craving your hot sweet loving.”  
[02:37] det lassiter: kjkjjnhnb nx\z hkls  
[02:37] shawnpsychic007: That’s what I thought    
[02:40] det lassiter: dxxxxfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffdffffffffffffffffffffff  
[02:40] shawnpsychic007: Lassie?  
[02:41] shawnpsychic007: Lassiter?  
[02:42] [message error]  
[02:43] [message error]  
[02:43] shawnpsychic007: are you ok, Lassie?  
[02:44] [message error]  
[02:45] shawnpsychic007: stay right where you are! I’m coming over.  
[02:45] shawnpsychic007: unless you’re drowning in your own drool or something  
[02:46] shawnpsychic007: then, roll over  
[02:46] shawnpsychic007: I’m on my way!

“Crap.” 

Falling back against the couch cushion, he groaned and rubbed his eyes. Shawn was on his way, at three in the morning, apparently under the impression that he was so intoxicated that he had passed out on his laptop keyboard and was in need of saving from… electrocuting himself with his own drool, perhaps….

Firefox whined as Carlton pushed himself forwards again to fire off a quick message:

[03:02] det lassiter: I’m fine. All sober. No need to come

Of course, there was no answer. He stopped even hoping for one after a minute, having seen how quickly the psychic had responded to the nonsense supposedly from him before. The frantic knocking on the door five minutes later pretty much confirmed that there wouldn’t be a response.

Sighing, Carlton got to his feet and shuffled to the door, not even bothering to check the eye-hole before opening it. If it wasn’t Spencer, then he’d count himself lucky to get robbed and not have to explain himself.

“Lassie!” There was no mistaking the forced grin as Shawn flung his arms open wide in greeting. Green eyes quickly scanned over Carlton’s pajamas, then behind him, down the hallway to the light shining through from the living room. The smile faded a little, his head cocking to the side. “Is everything okay?”

“Apart from it being three in the morning and I’m not in bed sleeping, everything is fine. Thank you for stopping by. Goodnight, Spencer.” He tried shutting the door in the psychic’s face, but unsurprisingly, Shawn slid over the threshold before Carlton got the chance, as if he’d been invited in. 

“Have you had some sort of fit?” There was no avoiding the concern in Shawn’s expression, the tilt of his head as he searched Carlton’s eyes, looking for under dilated or blown pupils, or something. It was clear, at least, that he realized the detective was stone cold sober. 

“No. I’ve not had ‘some sort of fit’!”

Shawn paused, actually froze for a second. “So, what, this was some elaborate way to get me over here for a booty call? You could have just asked, or, you know, shown up at mine. Do you always have to pretend you’re drunk to sleep with me?” He actually looked genuinely offended and Carlton didn’t know what to do with that right now. 

“Not always,” he bit out as he turned his back and began to walk back towards the living room. “Do you realize you spent half an hour holding a conversation with a dog?”

Silence, then a burst of shuffling as Shawn hurried to catch up with him. 

“Yes, Lassie.”

“No.” Carlton shook his head as he walked through the door and pointed at the couch, where the small puppy somehow managed to take up two seats, stretched out and infinitely the picture of innocence. “That dog.” 

Firefox raised his furry eyebrows and gave them both a sleepy, pale eyed look. Shawn made a soft noise, slowly processing the information, before quietly muttering, “oh, well, that makes sense.” Then, more loudly. “I should have realized. He was being far too friendly to me to have been you.”

“He was typing gibberish.”

“Yes, but psychically, I understood the meaning that he was trying to express through his typing. He wants to be cuddled more, you know. Of course, at the time I thought it was you asking for a petting...”

“You should go now, Spencer.” Carlton turned to him with a scowl.

A flicker of a frown crossed over Shawn’s face before he rolled his eyes. “But it’s late, and I’m too tired to be safe riding my bike home, and your bed is so comfy. How about you make it a ‘ _Shawn_ ’ night and I’ll give you a scratch behind your ear and see if it makes your leg jitter?”

Before Carlton could protest, Shawn was easing into his personal space as smoothly as he had slipped through the doorway. Carlton was too tired and too worn down to resist as Shawn reached out and slid his fingers through the hair behind his ear, blunt nails just grazing over his scalp. He shut his eyes to the sensation, not at all surprised when hot breath brushed over his mouth, followed by a soft kiss. Humming at the touch, Carlton’s hands settled at Shawn’s waist and pulled him in to deepen the kiss, breath quickening in a way that he would call a betrayal of his whole body if he didn’t already know how much he liked this. 

Pulling back, Shawn smiled one of those frustrating, victorious smiles. “I knew your bark was worse than your bite.”

“Don’t make me have to bite you, Spencer.” 

“Shawn.” That slight crinkling of his brow again.

“Shawn.” Carlton amended himself. It was a fair exchange: No last names, no annoying pet names.

The soft, genuine smile he got in answer would probably have been worth it anyway, if Carlton was sentimentally minded and trying to make more of their arrangement than it was. Which he wasn’t, he’d been burned enough by love, and to even think that word in connection to Shawn was dangerous. Even without any other issues, Shawn would get bored of him eventually and throw him aside. That was fine; he was carefully keeping himself distant, trying not to get dragged in by Shawn’s familiarity, because Shawn was familiar with everyone- it didn’t necessarily mean anything.

“Well, come on then.”

Carlton looked up from where he’d apparently been staring at Firefox, who was once again fast asleep. Shawn was standing in the doorway, obviously impatient to reach the bedroom. 

“Unless you want to stay out here with the dog. But you should know, I’m planning to have some fun in your bedroom, with or without you.”

With a start, Carlton began to follow. 

“Good choice.” Shawn was already pulling off his t-shirt and toeing off his shoes. “The fun without you would have involved going through your drawers and then eating cookies in bed.” He narrowed his eyes as he pushed his jeans down. “And I sense that you hate getting crumbs in your bed.”

Who didn’t? But now wasn’t the time to nitpick. Moving over to Shawn, Carlton pressed another kiss to his mouth, harder and more insistent, effectively shutting up both Shawn and the voice inside his head that liked to list off the reasons why this was a bad idea. 

The muffled moan that Shawn let out ran straight through Carlton to his cock. Hands came up to his chest, first pressing but not pushing, then brushing down his sternum as Shawn worked the buttons of his pajama shirt open. Carlton turned them both, one hand sliding to the base of Shawn’s neck, the other wrapping around his waist, and pressed him back against the edge of the mattress. As they fell, Shawn’s hands caressed beneath his open shirt, not holding on, trusting Carlton to make sure they both landed on the bed. 

Carlton leaned over Shawn, pressing his hardness into Shawn’s hip, and feeling Shawn’s own cock jutting back against him. He ground forwards gently, both of them groaning into the other’s mouth at the pressure. As Shawn pushed the shirt over his shoulders, Carlton eased back a little, Shawn’s hips instantly bucking up to keep the friction. 

Smirking, Carlton ran his hands down Shawn’s sides, stroking the smooth flesh. He shaped his fingers over the inward curve of Shawn’s waist, hitting a ticklish spot that made Shawn writhe beneath him. Repeating the action, Carlton watched as Shawn twisted beneath his hands, Shawn’s lower lip catching between his teeth as he let out a whine of frustration. Bending down, Carlton let his mouth graze over the spot. The skin was hot beneath his lips, the musky scent of Shawn so close to him. Shawn cried out louder, his body trembling as if torn between pulling away and pushing against him. 

There was a tug against his scalp as Shawn’s hand tightened in his hair, guiding him further down. Carlton followed the direction, his mouth easily finding the long, hard length, straining beneath the cotton of Shawn’s underwear. He breathed heavy, lips pressing against the scratchy material before settling over the head and the wet patch of leaking precum. His tongue flicked out, tasting the salt, his lips tightening over the head of Shawn’s dick trapped beneath the boxers. 

“Oh, God, Carlton,” Shawn pleaded with a gasp, “get them off already!”

With a last heavy breath against the head, Carlton straightened. It took a moment for the flexing hand in his hair to unravel itself, and then he was released. Shawn propped himself up on his elbows and watched as Carlton slid his fingers into the waistband of Shawn’s underwear and pulled them down his thighs and over his legs, taking his socks with them. 

As Carlton climbed out of his pajama bottoms, Shawn wriggled further up the bed to the headboard, so that when he was ready, Carlton found himself crawling up the length of the bed in a ridiculously erotic way to take Shawn’s mouth in another kiss. Shawn moved and leaned against him, pressing along the length of his body needily. Carlton’s hand found its way to the back of Shawn’s head angling him into the kiss and brushing his thumb through the fine hairs at the base of his neck. 

Shawn’s hands ran down his back, reaching his ass to cup and squeeze, jerking him forward so that their cocks brushed side by side, trapped between their bodies. Carlton let out a low growl, his hips snapping back and forwards again without Shawn’s guidance. Hissing into his mouth, Shawn’s hands tightened, his own hips rocking against Carlton. 

Rolling them so that Shawn was on his back with Carlton over him, Carlton shifted his attention down Shawn’s throat. As he began to rock and grind against Shawn, Carlton buried his head into the curve of Shawn’s neck, kissing, sucking and scraping his teeth over the flesh there. Shawn arched his head back to give him better access, thrusting his hips up to meet Carlton’s rolling jerks. His hands traveled up his back, tightening low around his shoulders as he clung to him. 

“Fuck. Carlton.” The breathy gasp against his ear was all that it took to draw an orgasm from him. He pulled his head back enough not to bite Shawn’s shoulder and grunted as he came. 

Shawn was still clinging to him, his hips still rolling up into the now slick space between their bodies, panting and gasping so close to the edge. Shifting his weight to one side, Carlton slid his hand between them and took Shawn’s cock firmly. Shawn’s eyes opened wide, black pools rimmed in a dark green as he watched Carlton’s face. Carlton returned the intense gaze as he began to jerk Shawn off hard and fast, his fist sliding over the head of his cock with each pass. 

It didn’t take long for Shawn’s eyes to flutter shut again, his breath catching and his mouth making a perfect “o” shape as he came hard across both their torsos. 

Absently wiping his hand on the sheets, Carlton fell back onto his pillow. He knew that he had a stupid sated expression on his face and that he needed to get cleaned up, but at that moment, it didn’t really matter. He soon dozed off, basking in post-sex warmth. 

_pnk-pnk-pnk_

When Carlton woke up, the first thing he was aware of was that half of his body had goosebumps, and the other half was warm and sticky. Opening his eyes and turning his head quickly told him that Shawn was plastered against him, his head pillowed on his chest. Carlton wondered if he could pull up enough of the sheet they were lying on to cover the both of them. 

_pnk-pnk-pnk_

He blinked. The noise was strangely familiar. Shawn shifted and snuggled closer to him, flinging a hand over his shoulder in an unconscious effort to keep him still. Realization set in and Carlton groaned. 

Who had Firefox managed to message now?


End file.
